Comedy, life, expat, just fun

I Didn’t Ask.

When I initially decided to move to The Dominican Republic, I didn’t really tell anyone. Moving wasn’t new for me or my friends and family but I didn’t start telling people right away.

I lived in my hometown of Bentley, Alberta for eighteen years, then Red Deer, Alberta for another seven, Calgary, ten, Vancouver, close to three, Toronto made it to seventeen. But the few people I did mention it to never chose to support me, but rather to dissuade me. So, I stopped telling people.

I wanted to just slip away, tell people via Facebook once I’d settled. I did start to tell a few people a little closer to the date but the same thing happened. People seem happy on the surface but they say mean things. If they are jealous, I understand that. Say that. Say, “Fuck you, Bish! (Bish from SNL) I understand being jealous. That is an emotion I’m very close friends with. People would question my safety. Why? Because they spent a week in an all-inclusive resort five years ago. Seriously?

So. I stopped telling people. It wasn’t until my friend Hugh sent me a message he would be in my ‘hood in Toronto painting a restaurant and invited me down to chat. I walked down to the pub and we hung out for a few hours and I confessed to him that I was leaving and that my birthday was coming up that the cat got out of the bag. He insisted on a party, said he would plan it whether I was going to show up or help him, it was going.

We did a Facebook event and sent out invites. One of my friends we invited, who, P.S., isn’t my friend any longer, asked me what the invite was for. I told her I was moving to the Dominican. I had told her some months prior and her response was completely incredulous. “Is that still on?” she shriek. Yes. She shriek. Her face was all puckered up, too. I replied it was and why would she assume it wasn’t. Just because I don’t have the need to broadcast every sandwich I eat, every cat hair I find in it or the colour it was the next time we met doesn’t mean my life isn’t moving forward.

The advise started. What I should and should do. Always with the questions. I had never actually been here before I moved here so I didn’t really have a lot of answers. The only certain answer I had was the cat was coming with me. Otherwise my best response was, “Is that what you did when you moved there?”.

Now my chats ore on Skype. I chat to a few people regularly and as nice as it is, I can’t just chat. Why do people always feel they need to solve your life’s day to day? I like to vent sometimes. We all do. Just let us. Just let us vent and complain and tsk or nod or shake your head or a few there there’s and a ‘Bastard’ thrown in is all we want.

But stop telling me how to solve shit you know nothing about. I live here. You don’t. Enjoy your own unique situation, solve your own bullshit before sticking your oar in to mine.